Proposed ordinance takes aim at copper thefts

PEORIA — Houses are being broken into and ransacked, air conditioners are being ripped apart or stolen, all for the sake of copper.

The Peoria Police Department will propose a new ordinance to the City Council on Tuesday that the department says could help stem the theft of copper and other recyclable metals.

According to the Police Department, $600,000 worth of copper and air conditioners have been stolen in the city so far in 2014. The overall cost of those thefts, however, is even higher, said Criminal Investigations Division Sgt. Norma Fejes.

“That number is not what it would cost to fix all the damage done by scrap being stolen,” Fejes said. “They don’t usually work with fine, intricate tools to get that stuff out; they usually just rip it out, break it open.”

Henri Alwan owns and rents out numerous houses throughout Peoria. Three of his rental houses have been stripped of their copper or have had their air conditioners stolen. One of his houses has been hit twice.

“In one of my houses, they broke the wall in the bathroom, between the shower head and the faucet, to get a 3-foot pipe between the walls,” Alwan said. “They do it in summer, they do it in winter, it doesn’t matter.”

According to Behr Recycling, copper sells at local scrap yards for roughly $2.50 a pound. Fejes and Detective Randy Schweigert said copper thefts rise and fall with copper’s value, but that the 2014 totals aren’t far off previous years.

The proposed ordinance would require scrap yards in the city where copper is sold to be licensed through the city. Peoria would then require them to copy the state IDs of all sellers and post those images and all transactions featuring copper, aluminum, other recycled metals and any mixture to a website called leadsonline.com. Fejes said the ordinance mimics state of Illinois law.

Schweigert said: “This would help us build cases against those doing the damages. We have someone bring up the information in minutes, we can start doing surveillance on vehicles a lot quicker and figure out the difference between the legitimate scrappers and those doing things illegally.”

Both the scrap yards and police know that a majority of those who sell copper in the city are doing so legally. The people who do so illegally are usually “career criminals,” according to Schweigert. They steal the copper themselves, chop it up into pieces elsewhere and hire middlemen to sell the copper to the scrap yard.

“I think the ordinance would help to an extent, but I don’t know if the scrap yards would be OK with this,” Alwan said.

Dave Rumer, vice president of Behr Recycling, said he has “mixed emotions” about the ordinance. “If a yard didn’t comply, or operate legally, and the city jerked the license, the scrap yard wouldn’t be able to open. I’m fine with that.”

“I have a problem with the police singling out a specific commerce and what they do,” Rumer said. “Anything worth value will be stolen, not just copper.”

But police say copper is an easier commodity than some others for thieves to obtain. Steal an air conditioner and one can harvest copper from inside. Break into a vacant home at night, and thieves can have their run of the place.

“As soon as you put a ‘For Rent’ sign on houses, they’ll be broken into and stripped of what they’re worth quickly. They’re good at it,” Alwan said.

Rumer said he is confident Behr isn’t buying much illegal copper, because his scrap yard already complies with a “vast majority” of the proposed ordinance. Behr submits purchases to leadsonline.com already and has digital photos of every transaction. If the ordinance makes all scrap yards do the same, Rumer said, “That’s a good thing, it keeps people competing with us. We like competing, but not with a competitor that isn’t running on an even and legal level,” Rumer said. “I just don’t know what issue this is to the general public.”

The issue is important to property owners such as Alwan, who said his property on North Douglas Street was broken into and stripped of almost all its copper in January while a snowstorm was dumping 8 inches of snow on the city

“That one had $8,000 in damage, and that doesn’t even count the plumbing,” he said.

Alwan hopes that if the ordinance passes, it will stem the tide of copper thefts in Peoria. That way, he can spend less time boarding up holes and taking drastic steps to guard his property.

“I just put a ‘For Rent’ sign in front of a house. I put empty pallets around the air conditioner and put a tarp over it so they don’t steal it,” Alwan said. “It would be nice if the police could stop them.”

Zach Berg can be reached at zberg@pjstar.com or 686-3257. Follow him on Twitter @ZacharyBerg.